oh, how i wish had laurie in my classroom. i just love her! but there are so many laurie's out there. i was fascinated how year after year hicks became more and more involved with laurie...not just through observations and tutoring but how she began to love her...and how laurie showed at the end of their time together that she loved ms. hicks. (the card) i found the story of their years together to be somewhat sad. there have been so many times that ive wanted to pick up my little kindergarten children and make things okay for them...make it all better. if only hicks could have sprinkled magic dust on laurie's life and given her a father and the financial means to make her life more comfortable emotionally and physically. if there was only a way to give laurie the individualized time that she so desperately needed. i have two girls and we plan little trips together and alone. one day i will go on a journey with my 14 year old and then the next day my 6 year old and i will go on an adventure. my husband does the same with them. children need time with their parents and laurie's just didnt have the home life that allowed her time with a mother and father. im wondering what laurie thought deep inside about her trip to borders with hicks...im wondering if it was one of those memorable events that she will never forget....time alone with ms hicks. i wonder if that day changed how she viewed herself.
it is so upsetting that laurie's love for writing and literacy in kindergarten did not flow over into her next years of school. i do not believe that there is a "program" out there anywhere that can teach all children perfectly. so why did her first grade teacher just watch her fail...knowing that the material she was using was not supporting laurie? you can not teach a program, you have to teach children. between her busy life at home without a father, her medications that made her "voiceless", and a reading series that was not supportive of her prior knowledge...her needs, its no wonder that she remained a struggling reader...no wonder she began to have difficulty at home. and bless her heart, she couldnt even get title I until second grade! poor thing just had to sit there without support. as a former title I teacher, i found this part of laurie's life to be painful!
once children fall behind the gap just gets wider and wider as the child gets older. it seems as if the "worksheets and planned reading program" was not right for laurie. it is so sad...so unfortunate that her teachers could not see laurie's needs...and gifts. where was guided reading and writer's workshop in first grade?
when it comes to discipline i believe that we have to understand our children...everything about our children...home life, class, race... when a child is out of sorts we have to see the whole child. and when children are having difficulty academically we have to see the whole child as well.
i have thought so much about my kindergarten class and how many different types of family/home situations there were...no child came from the same kind of family. each child had something to offer! and each child had needs. this chapter has encouraged me to continue looking deeply into the lives/backgrounds of my children. in the end i believe all children want acceptance for who they are...how profound.
such a sad chapter for me...but powerful!
donna byrd-wyatt
Comments (5)
Donna, What a great statement you made, "You cannot teach a program, you have to teach children." This is so true! I think this is a lesson many educators need to learn. School boards and politicians and all kinds of folks choose textbook series, probably based more on financial reasons than on anything else, and expect every child to fit into that program. Even more unfortunate than that are stories, like Laurie's, where a teacher is willing to fall into this "cookie-cutter" trap. Maybe the best option with a book series like that is to have a good balance between texts at a student's individual level along with literature outside of this basal. Any thoughts on successful reading programs for the classroom? I'm new at this so I'll take all suggestions I can get! ~Allison Reese
Posted by Allison Reese | June 12, 2007 11:11 PM
Posted on June 12, 2007 23:11
Donna,
I too felt so bad for Laurie. These are the kids who need us the most- first as a teacher and certainly as a caregiver- someone who looks out for the best interest of the person, the child who needs a little more. We do need to remember to be sure not to judge kids so quickly and remind ourselves that we teach children, we prepare them, we encourage, and we bring to them this monster called the Standard Course of Study. I have a saying hanging above my desk- Children First. If I remember that then I suppose I am doing Ok.
Posted by Renee Pagoota | June 13, 2007 8:30 AM
Posted on June 13, 2007 08:30
Donna,
Amen! I just sat nodding my head, as I read your comments. I think back to my first year of teaching. I taught kindergarten. Yikes! It was a mess! I am not kidding! My children came from such diverse backgrounds and then they had a teacher that really did not understand them or their language. I was fresh out of college, moved to NC 2 weeks before the first day of school, and I did not understand their dialect yet. My life was upside down for the first 6 months. I had a little girl who had social issues. I could not figure her out. Her parents finally told me at the last conference that 3 days before she started kindergarten, something happened when she was visiting her grandma. She slept with grandma and grandma passed away in her sleep. This little girl was left lying in bed with a dead woman for hours, not knowing why grandma wouldn’t respond to her. No wonder she freaked out every day at nap time!!! It would have been nice to have learned this at the beginning of the year! Then I had a little boy who had severe behavior issues. He hit me several times. I had another little boy who urinated on my rug and in my corner. He didn’t wet his pants. He pulled them down and went. I had another little Asian boy who was hearing impaired and could not speak English. He did not receive medical attention until I jumped through hoops to make it happen. This little boy didn’t have a clue what was going on in my classroom. Another little boy had a severe speech impediment. He not only spoke the “country” dialect but what he did speak was undecipherable. His vision was really bad, too. I felt like I was hopelessly fighting for these kids. This was just the worst cases in my classroom. I won’t mention the not-as-bad items. Were they trying to break in a new teacher or what?! Teachers need support to reach these kids—all of them!
Written by
Heather Holland
Posted by Heather Holland | June 13, 2007 10:11 AM
Posted on June 13, 2007 10:11
After reading this chapter I too feel led to look into the lives and backgrounds of my students because I want to make sure that I compensate for whatever their needs may be. But then I have a fear of compensating too much. What if we enable these kids so much that they realize they can use these situations as excuses? How do we help these children without enabling them? I hope that I do a good job of this, and I guess the answer to that question is just as best as we know how. I honestly think that this is the most difficult part of being a special education teacher. Even more so than the paper work. Helping children, without giving them a crutch to lean on and an excuse to use for the rest of their lives.
~Kristen Billings
Posted by Kristen Billings | June 14, 2007 1:59 PM
Posted on June 14, 2007 13:59
I too have wondered about Laurie's first grade teacher and have figured that she perhaps made some assumptions about Laurie and her future based on her socioeconomic class. Maybe she viewed Laurie's class as something that made her already deficient and therefore did not feel that Laurie would ever succeed. I don't know -- I'm making grand assumptions here, but based on other research about teachers and their treatment of working-class kids. I read one study that showed how "tracking" occurs *long* before high school -- even in kindergarten!! This study also said that the first "high stakes test" that students experience are the judgements of them by teachers who don't take time to learn their histories.
Posted by Alecia | June 14, 2007 10:13 PM
Posted on June 14, 2007 22:13